Paolo Bordogna

Funny Business

By Courtney Smith

The Italian bass-baritone Paolo
Bordogna has been exploring
hidden aspects of opera’s buffo
roles, bringing out the humanity
and pathos in characters who
tend to be dismissed as buffoons.
Courtney Smith discovers more
about an unusual career path that
has led him to record a solo
album celebrating the art of the
basso buffo

Boy wonders

By Amanda Holloway

Opera Now spotlights the art of the baritone,
presenting ten of the most promising and distinctive
voices in a new generation of young talent

Sheer imperfection

By Benjamin Ivry

She was known as ‘The diva of din’ and ‘the First Lady of the sliding
scale’, a figure of ridicule mixed with admiration on account of her
unflagging belief in her own highly dubious singing talents. Florence
Forster Jenkins may have massacred Mozart, but she had legions of
adoring fans, sold out New York’s Carnegie Hall, and has been the
subject of numerous stage plays. The off-key opera-singing socialite is
about to be immortalised by Hollywood in a new film starring Meryl
Streep. Benjamin Ivry contemplates the reasons for Mme Jenkins’
enduring appeal

Passports please

By Simon Rees

You may not think of the Arctic or the Andes as obvious opera
destinations, but for Opera Now’s globe-trotting correspondents, some of
the most rewarding experiences of opera can be had while travelling off
the beaten track. Meanwhile, we invite the best arts travel specialists in
the business introduce this year’s holiday highlights for culture vultures

Love duets, passionate beginnings, tragic ends

By Michael Tanner

Hot under the collar

By Michael White

As opera critics go, I have a high
threshold of boredom. I can sit
through anything from Monteverdi
to Mascagni and find something to divert
me. I’m amused by preening divas, backstage
tantrums, excess and high camp. I understand
when things go wrong, because I know
they’re sometimes bound to. In fact, I’m
relatively tolerant of failure: it’s instructive.

Bel Canto López

By Heidi Waleson
· Illustrations:
Andrew Ciofi, Todd Rosenberg

Composer Jimmy López and librettist Nilo Cruz,
both opera first-timers, have reshaped their source
material into a more conventionally active narrative,
which works theatrically but leaves some of the
magic of the original behind

Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci Mascagni/Leoncavallo

By Francis Muzzu
· Illustrations:
Catherine Ashmore

Having faced a barrage of boos during Guillaume Tell
at his Covent Garden debut earlier this year, director
Damiano Michieletto was either brave or foolhardy
enough to return to face the audience for a second
time. At his curtain call on opening night, the house
erupted into cheers, though a few people insisted on
making their discontent glaringly obvious

Strazsny Dwór Moniuszko

By Simon Rees

Stanisław Moniuzsko’s opera The Haunted Manor
is treasured by the Poles for its fearless statements
of national identity (it was first performed in 1865,
when Warsaw was under Russian rule), embedded in
a plot that rarely rises above farce

Armida Rossini

By Robert Thicknesse
· Illustrations:
Annemie Augustjins

Rossini’s sexiest score should be a complete delight
– and, for much of the time in this new production,
it was. However, shadows were cast by a soprano
who took a while to get going, and a staging that
veered from silly to acute and back again, with little
real core

Giovanna d’Arco Verdi

By Juliet Giraldi
· Illustrations:
Brescia e Amisano

In the wake of the attacks in Paris last November,
the opening night of the new season at the Teatro
alla Scala was considered a possible target for
terrorists and was the scene of a huge security
operation. The sense of solidarity with the French
was reinforced by the coincidence that the opera
in question happened to celebrate France’s national
heroine, Joan of Arc

Idomeneo Mozart

By Susan Nickalls
· Illustrations:
Michele Crosera

Few recent season openings can have been more
sombre than that of Idomeneo at La Fenice, which
took place a week after the terrorist attacks in Paris.
As a mark of respect, there was a minute’s silence
and the singing of the Italian and French national
anthems along with a warning that the ‘sound of
gunshots’ would be part of the performance

Opera di Firenze

Marco Tutino is one of Italy’s
most celebrated living
composers and a leading
exponent of increasingly fashionable Neo-
Romanticism. His latest opera, Le braci, was
warmly received by audiences in Florence.
The work is based on Embers, the novel by
the Hungarian writer, Sándor Márai.